My Father's Eyes
by Kylen
Summary: Jim Kirk doesn't know what to say – or what to think – after a certain conversation in a bar. Spoilers for "Into Darkness."


_Author's Notes: New movie channels on cable equal way too many times watching Into Darkness over the last month and a half. Not that I mind. Consider this a drabble – one of my few side trips into Star Trek. Also consider yourself warned – my Jim Kirk's headspace involves more than a few nasty words. This isn't likely going to be my only exploration into Kirk's reaction to Pike's death, but it's all I've got time for tonight._

* * *

"_You're going to be my first officer. Yeah, Marcus took some convincing. But every now and then I can make a good case."_

I keep playing that conversation over and over again in my mind. I shut my eyes, and I can still see his damned _face_ when he says the words.

"_What did you tell him?"_

"_The truth. That I believe in you. That if anybody deserves a second chance, it's Jim Kirk."_

Pike believed in me. Fuck. The alcohol kept me from calling bullshit on him right then and there, kept James T. Kirk from opening his damned mouth and inserting one huge goddamned foot. Dunno why I didn't – never had any problem doing it before.

"_I don't know what to say."_

Maybe that's why I kept my damned mouth shut. Hell if I know what the FUCK I wanted to say to a man who'd just got the most coveted chair in Starfleet. The chair that, until the last few hours, had been MINE. Did I deserve a second chance? Just how, again, did I wreck my FIRST chance?

By pulling someone's ass out of the fire – literally and figuratively, that's how. Repaid the favor Pike had done me when he pulled me up off the damned floor of damned bar in Iowa, when he forced me to look in the goddamned mirror and be honest with myself. He forced me to look at that reflection and realize that I was one of those 800 people George Kirk had laid his life down for. He _dared_ me.

My father had been captain for 12 minutes, and saved 800 people. What fucking right did I have to be wasting that gift? I didn't know what to say to him then – Pike, my father, anyone.

What a fucking WASTE James Tiberius Kirk had turned out to be.

"_Well, that's a first."_

Yeah, and he'd know, wouldn't he? Every step I've made over the last four years, he dogged. Like a fucking bloodhound on the trail of a damned fox. Guess he felt the need to keep an eye on the only genius-level repeat offender in Iowa.

No, he said…what did he say? It wasn't Iowa. It was the Midwest, wasn't it…the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest. Saved by a man who I would've sworn didn't know fuck-all about me, my life or my problems.

"_It's going to be all right, son."_

He … he told me he gave me his ship because he saw greatness in me, and all I wanted to do was BE GREAT. All I wanted to do was to be the captain of a ship, to do things right. To make _**him**_ proud of me. Not George Fucking Kirk, no. But Admiral Christopher Pike. The man who took a chance on the only genius-level repeat offender in Iowa.

"_Emergency Session. Daystrom. That's us."_

Us. Pike – and me. The man who said he believed in me. And he took my ship away from me, let me take my fall, and then pulled me back up again. For … what, exactly? To learn from a man who can't seem to decide whether he wants to throw me back in the Iowa cornfields or promote me to Admiral?

God, that sounds selfish. That man? He's the reason I'm here.

"_Suit up."_

And I did, and he did. And I couldn't listen to him, even then. Did I save anyone's life by opening my goddamned mouth and following that damned rabbit trail? Or did I just dig everyone's graves a little further? Just what fucking good did I do, trying to 'clear the room?' It's not like anyone fucking listened – or got the chance to listen. Not everyone died.

Should I take consolation in that?

He gave me a second chance, and how did I repay that? He's dead, and I'm sitting here, in the dark with a few scratches, a few bruises – probably a few cracked ribs by the way my ribs are screaming at me. Bones is gonna be pissed that I ducked my exam, but I can't deal with him right now.

Can't deal with anyone, I guess. I close my eyes, and I see HIM. His eyes empty, blank. Dead. Why wasn't I there, instead of Spock? What would he have told me then? Could he have told me anything?

Would I have listened?

"_It's going to be all right, son."_

I'm no one's son now. I'm just Jim Kirk. Alive when others are dead.

And "all right"? Nothing's ever going to be the same again.


End file.
